


argumentum ad misericordiam

by whatsinausername



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Cisco knows they're in a rom-com, Fluff, Harry gets it eventually, M/M, Meet-Cute, Tumblr Prompt, or at least is very determined to make one happen, umbrella sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 17:35:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17329436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsinausername/pseuds/whatsinausername
Summary: He could have gotten an umbrella, theoretically. Or called a car service. But he had been waiting for so long already (sunk cost fallacy) and the bus had to be coming any second at this point (Monte Carlo fallacy). So it made the most sense to keep waiting. Here. In the rain.Right? (No.) Right. Whatever.Harry was trying to remember if you could put cashmere-blend sweaters in the dryer when an umbrella nearly gouged out his eye.





	argumentum ad misericordiam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mousecookie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mousecookie/gifts).



> This one's for Mousecookie, who posted the Tumblr prompt that got the gears for this a-turnin':
> 
> "It’s raining today. I’m AU!hc’ing Harrisco as strangers who end up sharing an umbrella, maybe at a bus stop or at the crosswalk of a long traffic light.
> 
> Dealer’s choice on what the sitch is and who decides to share their umbrella. Like does Cisco lift up his massive bulbasaur-print brolly to cover the grumpy tall? Or does Harry tilt his sensible black one to cover the sad smol? Either way, the rain suddenly gets *torrential* and they have to huddle together. Or dash to a nook under the awning of a building, and then huddle together."

It was raining.

It was cold and raining and the bus was over half an hour late. Of all the days for his driver to have a baby, it had to be the one where the heavens had randomly opened up like someone was trying to cleanse the Earth of all its idiots. Harry had known, of course, in an abstract sort of way, that being very late was a thing buses did sometimes, but Jesse hadn’t told him that it could get this egregious.

And when it was raining, too. Didn’t they have extra buses they could send out in bad weather? If not, why the hell not? Harry was going to have to talk to someone about that. 

He could have gotten an umbrella, theoretically. Or called a car service. But he had been waiting for so long already ( _sunk cost fallacy_ ) and the bus _had_ to be coming any second at this point ( _Monte Carlo fallacy_ ). So it made the most sense to keep waiting. Here. In the rain. 

Right? ( _No._ ) Right. Whatever.

Harry was trying to remember if you could put cashmere-blend sweaters in the dryer when an umbrella nearly gouged out his eye.

“Ack! Sorry!”

Harry whirled around, rubbing his watering eyeball, to see a man, holding up an enormous TARDIS-print umbrella, with ( _um_ ) very shiny hair and a ( _stop_ ) very pretty mouth turned down in an abashed frown.

“What the hell are you –” Harry started, because pretty or not, the man had very nearly enucleated him, but the guy was already babbling over him.

“Seriously, dude, my bad, is your eye okay? I didn’t mean – I just saw you standing there looking like you’d just emerged from the ocean Aquaman-style, but like, way sadder than Aquaman, ‘cause you haven’t really got the hair for the hair-flip, and that sweater looks like it’s gonna take _ages_ to air-dry. Anyway.”

And the man held the umbrella up again, higher this time, so they were both standing under it. Harry accidentally just stared at him for a second, then found the jump-start cables for his brain and stepped back.

“I don’t need your help,” he said, in a tone that probably ( _definitely_ ) would have had Jesse telling him to _watch your fucking tone, Dad_.

“Um, yeah, you do.” The man stepped close again ( _closer?_ ) and thrust the umbrella over both their heads. “You’re, like, the wettest person I’ve ever seen, and my dumbass friend Barry does polar bear plunges.”

Harry batted the umbrella away, which got a _very_ amusing affronted sound out of the other man. “Okay, A,” Harry growled, “you almost stabbed my eye out with that thing, so I think I’m better off without it or you anywhere in my vicinity. And B --" he spat water out of his mouth, which admittedly probably didn't help his case -- " _I don’t need your help_.”

“Alright, _A_ , I already apologized for the eye thing, and it’s not really my fault you’re taller than God.” The man grabbed Harry by the arm and _tugged_ until he was under the umbrella again. “And _B_ , I couldn’t just stand there and watch you catch hypothermia. What kind of person would that make me?”

They really were standing very close together. And the man’s hand was still on Harry’s bicep. Harry narrowed his eyes at him. “So I’m supposed to believe that you just go around offering your hideous umbrella services to every damp stranger you meet?”

“Okay, so maybe my motives weren’t entirely pure.” The man shook his hair out of his face to look up at Harry, a grin building on his stupid ( _pretty_ ) mouth. “Because I _did_ think you were hot. Until you started talking, anyway.”

Harry blinked. “I’m sorry,” he heard himself saying, “ _I’m_ not the one who blew your rom-com moment. You did, when you stabbed me in the face.”

“Hey, man, that was on brand. Have you ever _seen_ a rom-com? There’s always the hilarious, clumsy one, and the grumpy, ruggedly handsome one who secretly finds their antics charming.”

“Right.” Harry felt himself smiling, almost. “I’d have to find you charming, though, for that metaphor to work.”

The guy wrinkled his nose teasingly at him. “You do, though, so it does.”

Harry just hummed low in his throat, not bothering to deny it anymore. “So what happens next? In the rom-com.”

“Well.” The man let go of Harry’s arm and held out his hand. “I think the music swells, and I say: Hi, I’m Cisco Ramon.”

“And I suppose I say something clever, like: I’m Harry. It was not nice to meet you.” Harry shook Cisco’s hand and didn’t let go, because he was starting to feel warm again in a way that had very little to do with the umbrella over his head and everything to do with the way Cisco was smiling at him. “But it’s getting nicer.”


End file.
